MonTowers: We Came, We Saw, We Conquered Every Monster

Games with some focus on collectible items are great at satisfying my compulsive side, and those that incorporate some sort of combat make for an awesome stress reliever. MonTowers has both fronts covered.

It’s not entirely clear whether you’re a mad sorcerer or a mad scientist, although I suppose that in a fantasy universe, they’re more or less the same thing. Your fortress-slash-lab is HQ; you’ll be spending your time between there, the field, and the towers themselves. In the field, you’ll collect different types of gems, each identified by an element. You’ll use those back at the lab in combination with spells and monster ‘coins’ (collectible trophies) in order to summon your beasties. Then you’ll schlep them to the towers. That’s where the really fun stuff happens.

MonTowers is more or less a menu-based game, so you won’t really have much to master in the controls department. The one action-type of control you have is very simple (although sometimes challenging due to a speed issue). When you put your monsters into battle, you have the opportunity to give them an advantage beyond their stats. A small bar at the bottom of the screen features a rolling silver icon. When that lands in the bar’s red section, you tap to get your monsters to attack. They’ll deal harder hits if it you make it within that optimum timeframe. The size of the red section as well as the speed of the icon vary with each of your opponents.

There’s a huge variety of monsters in the game already, and considering how playable it is and the popularity potential it has, I’d imagine MonTowers will be due for updates that add more fiends to your fortress. The sheer number of monsters you’re able to collect—200 or so—is one of the best aspects of the game. You get monster coins by defeating that monster in battle. You don’t get one for every victory however; some baddies give you more of a fight than others. And, it’s not even really 200 monsters, because each monster can be upgraded twice. While it’s still the same monster as far as your collection gallery goes, their appearances, stats, and skills are all enhanced, significantly. Seeing your monsters “grow up” is extremely fun.

Of course, a major part of that is character design. While MonTowers certainly isn’t going to wow anyone with new graphics technology, its bright, creative graphics and hundreds of monsters will definitely entertain you.

You can find MonTowers in the iTunes App Store for just $0.99, and it’s a great deal for a game that offers a huge amount of quality content.